Orange is the New Weiss
by Moczo
Summary: Ruby Rose and her partner, Weiss Schnee, have been sent into a backwoods hiking trail in search of a rogue faunus preying on campers. It should have been an average case the likes of which they'd both dealt with a thousand times before, and at first it really was... until the monkey showed up, and everything went to Hell. ::Agents of Beacon-verse, post-Breaking the Ice::
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Hey, all! With RWBY coming back from it's long break, I am also coming back from my long break of writing things that aren't RWBY. Okay, this is technically Agents of Beacon, but... um... that's RWBY-ish. And I'm the author, so I'm always right. **

**... Enjoy!**

(*)

**Orange is the New Weiss**

**(*)**

**Chapter One**

**(*)**

It really should have been simple, and frankly Ruby felt this was what should have tipped her off to how wrong it would go.

The target was something entirely normal for them. _Too _normal, in fact. A faunus, and a large one, had mauled a pair of campers; just a couple, out on a trip to enjoy the woods. It wouldn't have registered on Beacon's radar, save for the fact the wife had barely survived, and insisted constantly and in a state of extreme panic, that her husband had been killed not by a bear or a wolf, but by a _lion. _

It was an event that seemed to have become increasingly common in the last few months, sadly... Ruby could hardly remember her last case which _didn't _involve a faunus in some way. To Weiss, who had never particularly cared for the faunus anyway ("I try my best, I really do, but they act like they're the only people in the world who face any discrimination and it gets old. I spent my entire childhood without any friends, and unlike some of them, I have never _eaten people._"), this was not hugely worrisome, but to Ruby, it seemed like a problem. There had always been outliers, of course, the radicals, but it seemed of late they were more radical than not.

And of course, more and more of Beacon's informants had been whispering the name of 'White Fang,' and nothing that any of them had heard suggested it was anything good at all.

So in general, the feeling around Beacon was one of intense discomfort, and Ruby couldn't help but bring that feeling into the field with her, despite herself. At least she had kept Weiss from noticing how on-edge she was, but-

"Ruby!" Weiss snapped. "Are you blind? You just walked right past that snapped sapling without even checking near it. Look, paw-prints, too big to be anything that lives in the area. We're on the right track."

"Oh! Um. Sorry, Weiss, I…"

"Don't apologize. Just do better," Weiss said. "I know you're nervous about those White Fang… _people…_ but this is just like any other case until proven otherwise. Keep your head in the game and your eyes on the evidence."

Well. Okay, so much for keeping Weiss from noticing her worries. "Right. Yeah," she said, nodding a few times. Normally Blake or one of the other faunus agents was sent on these sorts of missions, tracking in the woods, but the upswing of radical faunus attacking civilians had made even someone as open-minded as Chief Ozpin cautious. He had absolute faith that none of his own chosen agents would be involved in something like this, of course; but it was impossible to feel that same faith about sending them out _against_ those who were. How could you ask someone to hunt down, even kill, someone who might well very well be an old friend, or even family?

Ruby suspected that was one more reason for Weiss's obvious bitterness, frankly. When a yuki-onna or half-breed like herself was the problem, she was almost always the one sent in, as a specialist. It was not personal; faunus were common all over the world, and basically everyone in Beacon knew how to deal with them. Yuki-onna, in comparison, tended to live only in very cold climates, and were very insular. It was entirely possible that literally no other hunter in the entire world knew more about them than Weiss, either in terms of dealing with them diplomatically or stopping them when they went on a rampage.

Ruby knew her partner well enough to know this was not much of a comfort.

"Hold up," Weiss murmured, lowering her voice and raising a hand as she pushed aside a leafy branch. "I think we found something."

The clearing was small, and not particularly well-maintained. The trees were only barely kept back from the edge, and nobody had made any effort to stop grass and weeds from growing around it, leading to plant life nearly as tall as Ruby and Weiss themselves (_not that they were short!). _There were no beaten paths through it, and no signs of anyone tramping through the tall grass fact, had it not been for the thin line of smoke coming out of the chimney of the decrepit cabin in the center, they might have walked past, assuming it to be uninhabited.

But there _was _a thin line of smoke.

And you didn't become a Beacon agent without learning to spot when a place smelled, however faintly, of blood.

"Okay," Weiss said softly. "We're reasonably sure he's a faunus, so we really only have two possibilities here. Either he's asleep, and he doesn't know we're here. Or he's awake, and he almost _certainly _smells u-"

With a bloodcurdling roar, a mass of fur and fangs the size of a bear smashed through the door of the 'abandoned' cabin, the lion faunus lunging through the grass so quickly it was barely more than a blur under the pale moonlight. Had Ruby and Weiss been a pair of, say… innocent campers out on a nature hike, they would certainly have been killed in an instant.

Of course… this was a big 'if'.

Weiss slammed her palm into the ground with nearly the same inhuman quickness as the lion, and the thick evening mist of the forest coalesced into into ice; not very high, but coating half the clearing.

And spiky. Very, very spiky.

The leaping faunus stumbled, snarling in mixed pain and fury as the spikes shot up from the ground and clipped its legs. The thing tumbled among the icy spears, most of them not piercing the thick hide, but enough doing so to piss the thing off. It crashed to its feet, ice shattering like glass, lines of red running down its coat. The lion roared its fury, a sound that these forests would never have heard in nature.

"Hiiiiiiii," Ruby said cheerfully, from right behind it.

The big cat whirled, a shockingly human expression of surprise on its face as it realized that one of the humans it had sought as prey had, somehow, slipped through a field of ice daggers without making any noise and without being seen, in the space of a second…

Torn between two threats, caught in a pincer, the faunus's human mind panicked and defaulted to its instincts. The lion gathered it's legs beneath it, and pounced at Weiss, the smaller (And Ruby would never let her forget it) and weaker-looking of the two, the pain-filled mind of an animal unable to link the ice to the woman creating it, and unable to register anything but the thought that the weakest threat should be taken down first.

Ruby sighed, and showed it why turning its back on her was never a good idea, even if Weiss probably was full of vitamins. Rose, one of her twin pistols, released its cartridge of Dust with the impact of the pistol's hammer, and what emerged from the barrel was…

Well.

Not a bullet.

Ruby had never seen a lion on fire before, but the mane was actually somewhat _more _impressive this way. At least until it started rolling around in a furious panic.

"What do you think?" Ruby asked, casually leaping backward to land on top of one of the ice spikes, balancing on the tip with catlike grace. The faunus continued to burn, snarling in futility and rolling on the jagged icy meadow, only wounding itself further in its panicked attempts to extinguish the burning particles of powdered Dust clinging to its coat. "Should we try to take him alive? See what he knows?"

"He's a kook living in the woods, why would he _know _anything? And I'm not inclined toward mercy after he ate some poor bastard who just wanted to enjoy a walk with his wife," Weiss countered. "Particularly since he just tried to do the same to us!"

"But if he's White Fang…"

"I like to _hope _White Fang has more standards than that, but… what am I saying, they're savages. He'd fit right in," Weiss said with a sigh. "All right, if we can calm him without risking our lives, do your best. I look forward to Glynda ripping the information from his mind."

"Um…" Ruby said, motioning at the fire.

Weiss sighed, rolling her eyes. "_Fine_," she snapped, twirling her hand lightly. The ice on the ground tore from the grass like a thing alive, a wave of frost the ripped over the faunus, turning to steam on contact and dousing even the magical fires of Ruby's Dust bullet. The lion stumbled to its feet, clearly confused and in a great deal of agony as it stood on four shaky legs.

"Okay, Mr. Kitty," Ruby said, leveling her twin weapons and smiling innocently. "I like to think we've proven that you're not in charge here. Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to show you what kind of bullets are in the _other _gun? Hint: You'll enjoy them _even less_."

The battered, bruised, and burned lion looked back and forth between Weiss and Ruby, weighing its options. Ruby _almost _felt bad for the poor thing, it looked so pathetic, until she remembered that it was a murderer and it had tried to eat her.

Luckily, she was paired with Weiss in the field, and Weiss _never _forgot those sorts of things. She raised a hand, frost glimmering in her palm, and said, very calmly, "Change out of your combat form, or we _will _kill you. You have ten seconds. Ten… nine… eight… _ouch!_"

"Weiss, the next number wasn't ouch. It was seven," Ruby said, a bit nervously. Weiss wasn't the type to joke about…anything. It was part of her charm.

"I know how to count, you dunce! I just… I…" Weiss moved her hand away from her neck, where she'd snapped it during her little counting fiasco, and said, "Aw, crap…" as she drew her fingers away to see a small dart clasped between them, and a few drops of blood on the tip of it. Dizzy and growing rapidly more so, she fell to her knees, unable to muster the strength to stand.

The lion, seeming to recognize that this time, the weakest target really _was _weak, decided to be a jackass and charge her. Ruby yelped, her fingers tightening on the trigger…

And then the monkey came.

Ruby was not a zoologist, and she didn't really know what _kind _of monkey it was. It was a fluffy golden-orange type, with a lot of fuzziness and an adorable expressive face. It probably would have been really cute, honestly, had it not been roughly the size of a professional basketball player, and if it had not made its entrance by leaping down from the trees in a golden blur and, quite literally, flipping the lion over its head and _throwing _it. The rogue faunus slammed into a tree trunk so hard it shattered, and finally, _finally _went limp.

Ruby blinked. "Um. Thank you, monkey?"

The monkey turned to her, its tail curling in happiness, and it winked at her.

The monkey.

Winked.

And then, in a blur of motion that even she had trouble following, it scooped up Weiss in its arms and leaped into the trees, jumping from branch to branch like lightning as the half-conscious half-snow girl in its arms squeaked indignantly.

After a painfully long second of 'What the Heck', she burst into the chase, shouting out the only battlecry that made sense to her at that moment: "Give her back, you damn dirty ape!"

Behind them, the lion kind of twitched.

(*)

Sun Wukong was not, despite how this all appeared, a bad guy.

Oh, it was true he was kidnapping this Schnee girl from her partner, who was sprinting behind him oddly fast for a human and shooting what appeared to be some kind of lightning bullets at his backside (and worse, she'd called him an ape! Could she not see the tail?). But he wasn't doing it to be _malicious_. It was just that being a faunus in a world that largely liked to pretend magic didn't exist, and liked to set it on fire when it got too uppity about that attitude, left a guy with shockingly few career options. So Sun, since he had too many morals to join an outfit like White Fang, and not enough morals to just starve, had become a thief.

He was pretty good at it. Really good, in fact. And it turned out that, if you were a good enough thief, there were career options you might not consider. Sure, you could steal a famous diamond, but what then? You couldn't just pawn it off, unless you were willing to have it broken down into smaller chunks, and that just seemed douchey to Sun. But on the other hand, if you looked, you could _probably _find someone who was willing to pay you a lot of money to get that same diamond for them. Not because it was valuable, but because they just liked owning things that nobody else owned.

And so that was how he'd gotten to where he was now, kidnapping. It was really just stealing a person, right? And someone had paid a _lot _for it, so Sun was immediately interested. He wasn't some monster, of course; he'd researched the client thoroughly, made completely sure that the girl wouldn't be hurt. He wasn't the sort who would ditch some poor woman into a deathtrap, certainly! Kidnap her, sure, kidnapping was okay. Hurting her seemed rude.

A crystalline bullet slammed into the tree he had just leapt from, sending arcs of electricity roaring through it and making the trunk explode violently, splinters raining over the forest. _Of course, I need to _finish _the kidnapping first, and then maybe wonder about the morals of it. _

He had to admit he was impressed. He was a faunus, in his beast form; logic dictated that he was stronger, faster, and more agile than any human could match. Even better, he was a monkey; these woods were basically a walk in the park (_was _this as park? Because that would be kinda funny) for him. His instincts and abilities were turned to jungles that most definitely didn't have hiking paths or cabins, and most definitely did have jaguars and anacondas. There was _no way _she should have been able to keep up with him.

And yet, the Dust bullets were a-flying.

She was having trouble hitting him, or maybe she wasn't even trying; after all, he was holding her friend, and it was dark, and they were both moving _very _fast. She might have just been trying to scare him, slow him down. If she could keep him in-sight until they ran out of tree line, then they she might have a chance to catch up or land a clean shot on his back without fear of hitting her unconscious partner.

Well, that was fine. He only _looked _like a monkey, after all. She wasn't the only one who could come up with a plan. And more to the point, she wasn't the only one who was armed.

He reached into the pack belted across his waist, the only piece of clothing he wore in his animal form, and withdrew a half-dozen small, silver orbs. He took a flying leap, letting his tail snap around a branch and using the momentum to reverse his course, flying directly _toward _the girl pursuing him. She squeaked in surprise, skidding to a halt on her heels and aiming upwards, taking a shot at him as he passed over her. The crimson Dust bullet seared through the air, passing so close to him he felt his fur singe, but it was no hit.

The tiny bombs he dropped on her, however, hit just fine.

They were not explosives, he didn't carry lethal weapons as a matter of course. They _were, _however, very useful. The tiny spheres were a personal favorite of thieves the world over; a thick, viscous tar sample, laced with emerald Dust powder. When exposed to oxygen, the earth-elemental Dust reacted, and… well.

_He _thought the end result was hilarious. The girl probably wouldn't agree.

(*)

Ruby dove for cover as the tiny bombs exploded around her, only to blink in shock as she realized they were not, in fact, exploding. Rather, the tiny silver orbs released some kind of dark mist that followed her, trailing in the wind of her leap. She covered her mouth and nose as best she could with a gun in each hand, struggling not to breathe until she could get out of the cloud…

And she fell, suddenly feeling fifty pounds heavier as her limbs quite suddenly failed to obey her. She landed painfully on her elbows, unable to bend her legs to roll, and…

Oh, _ew. _

Something thick, black, and nasty was clinging to her legs where the mist had touched them, pinning them together. She tried to pull it off, only to find her hand stuck fast to it like superglue… seeing no other options, she used her remaining free hand to level Crescent and fire a crimson round, a blazing ball of burning energy. The general idea was to fire a grazing round that would blast away the bizarre substance while leaving her legs undamaged and ready to keep up the chase.

The bullet bounced off.

The crimson dust flew off into the wilds and hit a tree, starting some fires. Ruby wasn't too worried about that, there was already a lot of fire going on. It was a wet summer, it wouldn't spread too far, and Dust crystals that small didn't hold out for very long. She _was, _however, worried about the fact that whatever was on her legs was apparently Dust-proof and it didn't appear to be going anywhere, anytime soon…

The monkey looked down on her from the trees, hanging upside down from a branch by his tail. She narrowed her eyes. "You _are _such a jerk."

The monkey stuck its tongue out at her, flipped up onto the branch, and leaped away. In seconds, it was gone.

Ruby tried really hard not to scream in frustration, she really did… but she didn't have that much willpower.

Three hours later, just as the sun was beginning to rise over the city, Ruby walked into Beacon Headquarters through the tunnel from the parking garage, her back covered in mud and a grim expression on her face as she dragged an unconscious man with lion ears and a tail behind her.

"We have a _problem_," she said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two  
**

**(*)**

"Oh, dear," Director Ozpin of Beacon said, sipping his coffee.

"Sir, this is a bit more than an 'oh dear' moment! Weiss is missing! Kidnapped by monkeys!" Ruby squeaked, gesturing at the lion Faunus who had been restrained by her in a device that Glynda had come up with for holding captive Faunus. It was ingenious, really; just simple metallic cords that bound their arms and legs together; tightly enough to prevent most movement, but not tightly enough to be painful.

Of course, the cords were Adamantine, an unbreakable divine material acquired via Agent Nikos's family connections. Any faunus who tried to transform while wearing them would find them suddenly _very _painfully tight indeed. As their very angry, very uncooperative captive had found out no less than twice since Ozpin had entered the interrogation room to meet with Ruby.

"Monkey _faunus, _you vile human raci-" the lion, who had refused to give a name, a cause, or anything beyond a lot of snarling, began, before Ruby very firmly pressed Crescent against his temple.

"My cru—sister's best friend is a Faunus, and I like Faunus, and I _tried _to be nice to you even though you murder people, but then you tried to _eat me, _and my best friend is gone, and _I am in no mood_!" she shrieked.

"Ms. Rose, please do not shoot the captive," Ozpin said. He leaned down to face the young man, unfazed by the clear madness in his eyes, and continued, "Good morning. Would you like a cup of coffee, perhaps?"

The man laughed, sweat running down his face and his thick black hair smelling of mildew and an extreme lack of bathing. "Oh, so you're the good cop? The little brat threatens me and you act all nice, and hope I'll betray my people for a damn cup of coffee?!"

Ozpin smiled. "No, no. It is just that I have lost an agent today, and the circumstances suggest it may be related to your friends in the… White Fang, was it? And as you are a murderer and your words suggest you are a terrorist of sorts, I may be willing to be lenient with your punishment if you tell us everything you know about her disappearance."

Something shifted slightly in Ozpin's smile, barely noticeable, but Ruby felt somehow that the temperature in the room had dropped. "If you continue to be uncooperative, however, I'm afraid I will have to arrange to have you killed. This will be unfortunate, but you are clearly not a highly-placed individual and we do have other sources of information. And while I can be a very cold man, I would certainly never end the life of a man who had not even had his first cup of morning coffee. So please…drink."

The madness in the young man's eyes did not lessen, but something changed about it. He seemed to shrink into his chair… or maybe Ozpin seemed somehow larger. "I… I am willing… to die for the cause."

Ozpin sighed. "All right. Please shoot him, Ms. Rose? Try to make the first shot lethal, to minimize the mess."

"Sir, I…" Ruby began.

"I outlined things clearly for him. We can't afford to look weak in front of such a man, he is a violent criminal," Ozpin said calmly. "Please kill him."

"Sir, it's just… if he knows something..."

"Then he is far too strong-willed to tell anyone," Ozpin said happily. "And I'm not a man who tortured prisoners, Rose. I have far too stringent moral standards. So please, execute him."

"B-"

"What's that?" Ozpin asked cheerfully, ignoring the fact that the prisoner was no longer looking all that resolute and dedicated. "You _insist _on torturing him first? Well, I can't assist you in that effort, Rose, I'm afraid my morals are far too strong. But I suppose I _could _give Agent Xiao Long the next week off. Tell me, are she and Miss Schnee still an item?"

Ruby blanched. "No no no no! You can't tell Yang, do you have any _idea _how crazy dragons get about hurting their loved ones?!"

"_Dragons_?!" the young and increasingly horrified murderer asked.

"She'll do _horrible _things to him if we let her get near him! He might not even be involved with Weiss's kidnapping, we can't just let Yang burn all his flesh off! She starts at the feet, you know, and works her way up!" Ruby squeaked. "I hear sometimes it can take literally _days _for someone to die if I dragon's feeling vindictive. I don't want Yang flying off the handle like that!"

"I didn't do it!" the young faunus screamed suddenly.

"Hm?" Ozpin said, trying very hard to not let his smile get _too _big. It might stop being unnerving if it did.

"My name is Marcus Deom! I… I killed those hikers! I admit it! I… it's… my…" he let out a sound halfway between a snarl and a sob. "You don't know what it's like. To have to hide constantly, to be treated like a freak if you walk in daylight with your ears uncovered, to…"

"So the White Fang was behind this, then?" Ozpin asked mildly.

"I… was trying to attract their attention. I don't know any White Fang myself, but we've all heard of them, and…"

"And you were applying to be a terrorist, how quaint."

"_Freedom fighter!_" Marcus roared. "Against people like you! Against all the humans _just like _you, the ones who keep us in the shadows like we were goddamn animals! The White Fang understand that we Faunus need to stand together before the humans wipe us out, you son of a-"

"Stand together?" Ruby asked incredulously. "Your own partner just took Weiss and ran off leaving you to die!"

Marcus laughed bitterly. "I didn't _have _a partner. I don't know who that monkey was. I was standing strong for my Faunus brethren while h-"

"Fantastic!" Ozpin said warmly. "I now have exactly everything I need from you, so, thank you for breaking under interrogation. It's so rare to see one who just basically gives in and confesses everything."

"I… but that… I didn't…"

"Well done, Ms. Rose. You were a superb good cop. Wonderful with the details of the dragon fire, that was inspired."

"But… I was just telling the truth," Ruby said bashfully, snapping a gag into Marcus's mouth because she did in fact know that there was nothing to be gained from letting him spout more rhetoric.

"And yet, you succeeded with flying colors," Ozpin said kindly. "Now, if you would be so kind as to throw this unique young man into a very dark cell and make sure he never sees daylight again, I would appreciate that."

"Um… and Weiss?"

"Sadly, we will have to fall back on other sources of data. I will get Ms. Belladonna on a search of the Faunus community, to determine if anyone is aware of an _actual _White Fang connection, or at least a certain larcenous monkey kidnapping young women," Ozpin said with a sigh. "And of course, Ms. Xiao Long can always engage in her typical ritual of intimidating underworld figures until she finds one that knows something. We have to consider that this was very possibly an attack on the Schnee family rather than Beacon; if so, then we have to consider the faunus who kidnapped her was hired muscle, rather than a revolutionary. The local criminal element would be more likely to have heard of any foreign talent entering the area."

"Um, sir, I actually wasn't kidding when I said Yang maybe shouldn't be brought in the loop on this one," Ruby said. "Dragons get… touchy about their significant other being threatened. I know that Yang doesn't really always act like we'd think she should, but she _really _likes Weiss and she is kinda-sorta… gonna go absolutely berserk…"

Ozpin winced. "I was afraid of that. Despite its somewhat… unsavory nature, Junior's is one of our better information hubs in this region. Having Ms. Xiao Long burn it to ashes would be a waste."

"Maybe I can go with Blake, and the two of us… after she, y'know, does her Faunus thing, we can…"

"Miss Rose," Ozpin chided. "Do you really believe the secretive, insular, and White Fang-sympathetic elements of the Faunus community will talk to Miss Belladonna if she approaches them with a human in her company?"

Ruby winced in reply, which basically said it all.

"No, I am trusting you to deal with the tasks we usually assign to you sister, as you feel she should be kept from the field. You know all her contacts, her usual stomping grounds. You can emulate her results, I'm sure."

"I don't think her informants will find me as intimidating as her, sir," Ruby said dryly. "Or as… ummm… well, to say…" She kind of made a vague gesture in the air around her chest, as if outlining two large watermelons. "_Convincing." _

"Well, I'm sure you'll make do," Ozpin said, trying very hard not to consider this. "Though… hm. Yes, perhaps that would work after all…"

"Eh?"

"Well, if you feel you need backup, I may have a solution. Are you familiar with the ATLAS foundation?"

Ruby blinked. "Um… well, sorta. I don't know much since we don't really work with them much, but they're kind of… us?"

"A bit succinct, but they do have a similar purpose," Ozpin said, motioning for her to follow him as he left the interrogation room. She briefly turned, wondering if she was still supposed to take Marcus down to holding, but decided that he had eaten some poor lady's husband, and he could stew in the restraints for a while while she worked out what was happening. "A great deal more 'official' though. They actually began as an offshoot of Interpol and have ties to several world powers."

"And we… don't?"

"Of course we do, on some level," Ozpin said with a small smile. "But it's more of a tacit approval and access to certain information than any official funding. We provide our own resources, we train our own agents, we work independently of any oversight save in the most dire of circumstances. ATLAS does none of the above."

"…. I bet they get all the cool toys, though," Ruby said a bit enviously.

"Actually, that's what I was hoping to discuss with you. You see, ATLAS recently asked us, as a favor, to perform a field test for them. And I think you're just the girl to do it," Ozpin said, opening the door to his office.

Ruby squealed in delight. "Oooh, you mean I get to bring along some fancy government superweapon when I go interrogating gangsters?! Because I have to say, I approve of this plACK!"

Something soft and yielding slammed into her as soon as she skipped through the door, not looking where she was going from the joy of being asked to try out a weapon nobody had ever tried out before. She wanted very much to save Weiss, of course, but in her mind it was always better to do so with a ton of very awesome firepower than without it. Of course, she also had no reason to assume anyone would be waiting, stock still, directly on the other side of the door for no obvious reason.

"Ow…" Ruby said, rubbing her head and looking at who she had knocked over.

The red haired girl, lying perfectly flat on her back, smiled cheerfully at Ruby, apparently totally unaware she had just been bowled over. "Sal-u-tations!" she said.

"Um… hi?" Ruby said. "You… I don't know you. Director, this is…?"

"My name is Penny!" the girl said, continuing to kinda just chill on the floor. "You can call me Penny!"

"… O…kay?"

"Ms. Rose," Director Ozpin said, his expression suggesting he was far too dignified to show it but on the inside he was laughing _so hard. _"Allow me to introduce you to the ATLAS weapon you will be field-testing."

Ruby blinked a few times, and looked around the office blankly.

"Um… is it _behind _Penny, or…?"

(*)

Weiss blinked, opening her eyes slowly, and was not enthused by what she saw, felt, and heard.

First of all, what she 'saw' was nothing. She was either in a very dark room, or… no, she could feel cloth on her face. She was blindfolded, so thoroughly no light could get through it. A wise choice; between the loss of her most widely-used sense, and the drugs that had been used to knock her out, she was groggy, delirious. She wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight.

Particularly considering that what she 'felt' was that she was tied up, and tightly. All her limbs were firmly bound, her torso was tied to some kind of metal bar, and she was swathed in thick layers of some kind of fabric. Worse, it all felt oppressively warm, as if she was smothered in thermal blankets, and her hands were tightly pinned to her sides. If she tried to manifest any sort of icy blade, she would be jabbing it right into her own kidneys. Again, very smart… and suggesting that this particular kidnapper knew exactly who she was, and what she could do. Between the temperature, the binding, and the placement of her hands, she was basically unable to bring her ice to bear in any way.

And finally, what she heard… was the rumble of an engine. Which was damn disheartening, because it meant she was being moved somewhere, and fast. She couldn't tell just from the sound just what the engine was; Blake and Yang were the ones who were good with vehicles, and besides, she was drugged and she felt like her ears might have been plugged too. If it was a truck, she might not have been moved too far, but if she was on a train, or worse, an airplane...

She fought down a spike of panic. She might have been hundreds of miles from where she and Ruby had been working. Beacon might not have any way to find her.

_So I'll have to find myself. Come on, Weiss, you're an agent, not a princess in distress. You can do this on your own. _

Well, that was a fine _thought, _but how? She couldn't move, couldn't see, could barely think straight, and she was _roasting_. Her natural body temperature was more about fifteen degrees cooler than human normal even when she wasn't using her powers; it was part of why she'd had horrible luck with people outside her family growing up. She felt too cold to be alive, and people spotted that quickly if she wasn't careful.

_Okay. Okay. The key thing, right now, is to try to get some kind of motion. Any kind, _she thought, trying her level best to keep her mind focused on the matter at hand. It was hard… that drug was still in her system, and she may have been dehydrated on top of it. _Hm. That's a thought. _

She wasn't gagged, and so she opened her mouth, and focused. The heating apparatus she was wrapped in stopped her from generating much ice anywhere else, and her hands, the main option for her offensive powers, were bound. But the inside of her mouth, closer to her core body temperature and shielded from the heating restraints…

A few seconds of effort, and an ice cube was resting delightfully on her tongue, gathered from water in the air. With a very pleased sigh, she began to roll it around her mouth, letting the blessed chill and the feeling of droplets of water trickling down her throat make her feel alive again. It melted enough to be swallowed after a few seconds, and she repeated the process several more times, letting a little water in her system and the touch of ice clear her head, slowly but surely.

_Okay. Now to do a little something about this heat. _

"Excuse me?" she called out, hoping to be heard over the engine. "I don't know who you are, or what you want with me. But I assume since I'm alive, you want to keep me that way. If that's the case, a cool drink would be a very nice plan."

"Sure," said a cheerful voice from barely five feet away from her, causing her to squeak instinctively in shock. "Except since I just saw you make one for yourself—nice trick, by the way!—I'm gonna assume that this is actually some kind of ploy to get me to loosen your restraints, or turn down the temperature. Which, sorry, but I'm a professional at this. Sorta." He paused. "Well, not at _kidnapping _per se, but at stealing in general, which, I mean, you have to _know _what you're taking and how to store it, or…"

"I get the idea," Weiss muttered, not terribly happy with herself. Between the engine rumbling and the pounding in her head, she hadn't been able to hear any signs of his presence, and she should have considered that her kidnapper might be literally _in the room _with her. _Next time, try the ploy first, demonstrate your skills later. Idiot. _"Look. Who are you? Why are you doing this? If all you want is money, then my parents will pay the ransom. But if you're some White Fang agent trying to send a message, I warn you, you're making very powerful enemies. You'd be better off looking somewhere else."

"All I want _is _money," the voice assured her. "I mean, I've gotten the recruitment speech like most any other Faunus with a hint of a reputation, but White Fang is crazy. I've been around the block a time or two, I know when someone is selling 'freedom' they usually mean 'freedom to be oppressed by me instead of the other guy.'"

Weiss did not quite sigh in relief, but she felt a weight off her shoulders. At least the odds of him killing her while she was trapped were slimmer, now. That meant she had time to think of a way out, and worst-case scenario, her father would most certainly pay to get her back safely. "Then you pull over your… truck?"

"Train."

_Dammit. _"Well, when it stops, then. I'll contact my family. The Schnee Dust Corporation can afford to pay far more than you could spend in a lifetime."

"Sure, and I could use it to fund my global travels away from the legion of bounty hunters they'd send after my tail," he said cheerfully. "I want money. I don't want _your _money. You're never going to see my face, never gonna know who I am. I'm going to turn you over to the guy who hired me, just as planned, get paid, just as planned, and go off on my own to live to a ripe old age without being gutted by corporate thugs. Just. As. Planned."

Beneath the blindfold, Weiss blinked in surprise. "This isn't about ransom? You were _hired _for this? Who? Some enemy of the company? Someone with a grudge against father, some kind of corporate espionage attempt? Because I haven't been involved in the workings of the company since I left Germany in my teens. I don't know anything of value. Or are they after _Beacon _secrets? Because-"

"You'll find that out soon enough. He was really looking forward to talking to you," the voice said calmly. "And for now, I suggest you make yourself a few more ice cubes to drink, because I will not be loosening your restraints, lowering the temperature, believing you if you say you're sick, giving you 'just a little water', or any other prison break cliché you might wanna use. 'Kay?"

"… You are _not _a very satisfactory kidnapper."

"No, I'm a _great _kidnapper. Enjoy the rest of your ride."

_Okay, Schnee. New goals: Get out of this mess. Freeze chatty monkey's face off.  
_

_It would be nice if I had some ideas on how to proceed, but it's good to have goals. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

(*)

Penny smiled, and Ruby tried not to be worried by this. "Okay, Penny. I just want to go over the plan one more time, to make sure we're all on the same page."

"My memory banks are functioning at 105% efficiency, Ruby my friend," Penny said cheerfully. "But thank you for your concern! I am very happy that you want me to be well-informed."

"I'm sorry, I just… wait, 105%?"

"The weather is unseasonably cold today, aiding in the superconductivity of my processors and creating a marked increase in efficiency!" Penny said. Then, apparently as an afterthought, she added, "Yay!"

"… Right," Ruby said. Honestly, this was a little hard to take in, but apparently Penny being a robot (or whatever Ozpin had called her… a 'techno-golem' or something) was not some gigantic prank being played on her. Or at least, if it was, Penny was extremely devoted to it. "Look, my point is, this is going to be kind of playing it by ear. I'm not the one who talks to criminals and wraps them around my finger, y'know? That's Yang. I'm more of a straight-up shoot-the-bad-guy type."

"I think a criminal would be too large to wrap around your finger, friend Ruby," Penny said. "Would you like me to begin construction of a larger prosthetic finger you could use for the purposes of wrapping?"

"No, though I do appreciate the literal reply. It makes me smile," Ruby admitted. "I just want to make it clear that I need you to stay out of the negotiations and let me do the talking. I will be very unsure of my skills in this position, and I'll need to focus. Can you do that?"

"As I stated the other five times this request was made, I am quite able of acquiescing to it!" Penny said cheerfully. "I shall stay totally silent and observe your great negotiation skill, for future negotiation reference. I feel that I will learn much from this."

"I certainly hope so," Ruby said. "You know, Penny, I have to admit, you're pretty likable. I was afraid for a bit you'd be one of those AIs who determines humanity needs to be protected from itself and conquers the world or something, but you're actually very nice."

"That is actually a common fallacy," Penny offered helpfully. "A true AI like myself is just as capable of making moral judgments as any human, and thus can factor ethical concerns and the emotional reactions of humans into my decision making. I determined within 3.5 seconds of activation that world conquest would be, according to all calculations and scenarios, largely unwelcome by most of humanity and would not contribute to making friends or locating cute boys about which to speak to said friends. In addition, social upheaval would halt the flow of trade goods, making shopping for adorable shoes impossible, and greatly diminishing my supply of fun. As I enjoy fun, I found this unwelcome."

Ruby patted her on the back. "If more people were like you, Penny, the world would be a better place."

"Thank you! But if more people were like me, they would buy all the shoes and talk about all the cute boys before I found any to talk about," Penny said. "Of course, there would be sufficient partners to engage in other activities, such as painting nails and/or styling hair, which would be fun too. So perhaps a mass-production model would be welcome after all! Ruby, you are very clever."

"I know, right?" Ruby asked. "Weiss _never _tells me how smart I am, but… oh, we're here."

She looked up at Junior's with an expression of worry. Yang loved this place, both as a source of information and as a place to just kinda hang out. Ruby, on the other hand, had always found it to be kind of intimidating. Junior was the best information broker in the region, but he got the majority of his information by employing a lot of very, very attractive people who were very, very good at convincing people to go into the back rooms and get too drunk to consider what they were talking about. As someone who found the concept of sex _slightly _horrifying (she was pretty sure Blake knew she had a crush on her, but somehow that did not actually make it easier to _say _it) Ruby tended to try to avoid going into Junior's whenever she could, and tried to hide in the corner whenever she had no choice.

_Okay, Rose. You can do this. Just do what Yang would do, _she thought as she stood outside the door. _Only. You know, _less _of it. Aim more at the violence instead of the… walking around in not much clothes and stuff. So do half of what Yang does. _

"All right, everyone!" Ruby snapped, bursting into the club. "Freeze!"

"We're closed," the janitor said, mopping the floor. Nobody else was there, so it did make sense that he was the one who would be talking.

"Wait, what?"

"'S a nightclub. It's noon. We're closed," he said, rolling his bucket along the floor toward a stain, so he could mop it.

"Oh. Um. Well, actually, we're here to talk to the management?" Ruby said.

"We need to talk to him about illegal activities!" Penny added helpfully.

"_Penny! Shhhhh!" _

"We need to talk to him about illegal activities," Penny said more quietly.

"… Anyway, is Junior in?"

"Ah, yeah. In the back. He and the pretty ones are goin' over the weekly budget," the janitor said, continuing to mop. "You can head on back."

"… We can?"

"I look like a security guard to you?" the janitor asked. "'S long as you don't shoot me, you can do whatever you want."

"Don't worry, friend janitor!" Penny said helpfully. "Ruby would never shoot an innocent unless it was within acceptable mission parameters."

"Yeah, I… wait, what?" Ruby asked.

"Mission objectives are important, Ruby."

"… Right. I'm just gonna pretend I didn't hear that and head on into the back rooms!" Ruby said.

"That sounds like a _great _idea!" Penny agreed.

(*)

Far away, in a much less trafficked neighborhood and moving with much more purpose, Blake Belladonna slipped down an alley, sliding through the shadows like she was born to them. The sun shone down, and yet whenever she didn't move, she seemed to simply disappear from sight.

"Are you ready?" she muttered into the commlink on her wrist, slipping against the grey brick of the old apartment buildings.

"_I'm not quite sure why I have to be here_," said the voice on the other end of the line. "_Nor am I sure why I'm walking down the middle of a deserted street in broad daylight while you hide. It makes me wonder if there's something I should be hiding from_."

Blake smirked. "You have to be here because the people I'm looking for are the sort of people that I want to find before they find me. They will see you, and I'll see them seeing you. And it has to be you, specifically, because they'd probably attack a human walking alone through this section of town. Even the police have learned to stay away."

"_Not really making me feel better." _

"Relax. I know your ears are covered, but they'll be able to smell you."

"_Well, I'm sorry, but I have my instincts too. And I can tell when I'm being watched, and my first instinct is to hide, not try to draw in more notice." _

"I think that technically counts as racist,"

"_And yet, true!" _

Blake chuckled despite herself. "Well. You're lucky. I do believe I see your tail."

"_No, I have it tucked into my… oh. You mean _that _kind of tail." _

Chuckling again, Blake took to the side of the building, scrambling up a fire escape without a sound and scaling faster than it looked like a human should have been able. Of course, it _was _faster than a human should have been able, precisely because she was not human, but she didn't really like to dwell on the details.

Her target was not terribly good at staying hidden. His position was downwind where he wouldn't be scented, and he was behind a ledge that would keep him hidden from anyone looking up, but to Blake, seeing him from another rooftop, he was basically standing in the open, and his eyes were locked downward.

A rookie at the stealth game, then. Hopefully he was at least a rookie that _knew _something. She would feel a little silly if they went to all this trouble and only picked up a common pickpocket or something.

Pulling herself onto the roof with a single swift motion, Blake launched herself into a sprint, and as she did, she changed. Before she had gotten halfway across the crumbling roof, the lithe young woman was gone, and in her place was an unnaturally large, solid black leopard padding gracefully through an environment that did not at all suit its majesty. She hit the edge of the building and leaped, clearing the street with impossible grace… and mid-flight, shifted back, letting her momentum carry her the rest of the way.

The man who had been staring down from the building was small; probably no more than fifteen years old, and extremely scrawny. Not skinny, _scrawny_. There was a difference, largely in levels of how pathetic it looked.

Though in fairness, this one might have looked pathetic because Blake slammed into him feet-first and pinned him to the rooftop with her heel pressed against his jugular. "Hello," she said, looking at the barely-visible rounded ears poking out of his dirty grey hair, and smiled at her correct guess. "Now. Please don't try to transform or struggle, or I'll have to hurt you. And I really don't want to, I hope you know that."

"I-I don't know what you mean! I haven't…"

She pulled her ribbon off, revealing the cat ears poking out of her own curly black mane.

His eyes bulged so much that Blake feared they would roll out of his head. "I… that is… I! You're one of…!"

"Please don't bring up comparisons. I don't waylay random pedestrians," Blake said flatly. "You're a rat, right?"

"… _Ferret, _thank you."

"Well. I'm a leopard. So you know what will happen if you get on my bad side. Understand?" she asked, stepping off him.

"Y-yeah. I get the implication," the boy said, rising shakily to his feet. "A-and I wasn't gonna hurt the girl. Really. I just wanted to make sure what she was, y'know? An' if she wasn't right, I was gonna scare her away, before one of the _really _bad sorts found her, maybe just take her purse or something, but I wouldn'ta hurt her, I swear!"

Blake almost smirked. "No, you wouldn't have," and then, into her comm, added, "Velvet, I have him. If you want to join us?"

A few seconds later, Blake's temporary partner leaped up to the top of the building, flipping herself over the edge and landing gracefully. As she walked toward them, she slipped the beret off her head and shook out her hair, letting a pair of large, soft rabbit ears pop out. "Well. I admit it wasn't very fun being bait, but it seems to have worked," Velvet Scarletina said. "So, is he a friend of yours?"

"… Hi," the ferret-boy said. "I'm… um… Kyle…?"

"Well, Kyle. It's nice to meet you!" Velvet said cheerfully. "This was a trap, so. You were not following the right girl, sorry to say."

"Yeah, I'm… I'm getting that."

"Luckily, we just need information," Blake said. "And kids like you have ways of hearing things, I know that much. Not so long ago, I _was _you. So, I need any information you can give us on a professional who came into the area recently. Monkey faunus, blonde. Not great at taking his job seriously from reports, but still pretty good at it. Professional thief or mercenary, as far as we can tell. You tell us who he is, or you point us to someone who can."

Kyle blinked. "First of all, why would I want to tell you two anything? Nothin' personal, but this ain't exactly a charity, and you haven't made a good first impression. What's my incentive?"

"We'll pay you if you do," Velvet offered. "We have a very large stipend for information brokers, and this case is something of a rush. You could make a lot more by finding out things in the community for us than you ever could picking pockets.

"And of course, if you don't play nice and give us something we can work with," Blake added, "I'll bite your arms off."

"… Okay, that's a lot of incentive."

(*)

Ruby had to admit, the back rooms of Junior's were not what she expected.

Oh, the _first _back rooms were. They smelled heavily of smoke, alcohol, and… other things she didn't care to think about, and seemed to be coated in furniture and carpeting that leaned heavily toward red, frilly, and with enough beds that had enough room for the girls to entertain an entire football team, if one happened to come in and get drunk with information Junior wanted squeezed out of them.

But once you got past those and into the employees-only sections, the club got very boring, very fast. Just bare concrete floors, and plain, dull old offices set off the side halls. Ruby headed down the hall toward what appeared to be the biggest one, and was rewarded in her hopes by the sound of a conversation within. "… And the private party for the Mayor is next week. I want you two on that one personally."

"Juniooooooooor, must we?" said a voice that was like the essence of whining, and yet somehow still managed to be alluring.

"He's so old and greasy and his wife is a jealous thing," added an identical voice. "And we can't even deal with it by seducing her too, because she's ridiculously ugly and her aura smells like steamed prunes. She'd give us indigestion."

"Have you ever had indigestion in your _soul_, Junior? It's even less fun than it sounds."

"Girls, we've been over this," the original voice said in a long-suffering tone. "The mayor is friends with the governor. They talk about stuff. Stuff that a lot of people will want to know about in the next election year. If all you have to do is deal with a jealous wife, then you take one for the team. Lord knows I pay you enough that you don't need to have dignity anymore."

Deciding for the sake of her own sanity she did not want to hear any more of that, Ruby walked up and knocked on the office door.

"Is that you, Ted? You better be telling me that the Cristal shipment is coming in early, because that ridiculous hotel heiress is reserving the club for a birthday party in two days, and she and her idiot friends will be doing a lot of underage drinking and sharing Daddy's backroom finance deals."

"Now _she _isn't bad. I'll do that one," One of the girls said.

"She's all plastic and silicone, love."

"But such well _molded _plastic."

"Um… excuse me?" Ruby said, poking the door open. "I'm not Ted. I'm actually from Beacon. I was hoping to talk to Junior Xiong?"

"You're talking to him," the fairy gigantic, bearded man seated behind the desk in the office said. "You're also in his private office without permission. We try to keep a cordial relationship with Beacon, but they do understand this is a criminal organization? We're not nice people. And we don't like trespassers."

"Or _do _we?" one of the other two voices in the room, a dark-haired and pale-skinned woman in bright red 'clothing' that appeared to be held on solely by Ruby's eyes being drawn to it against her will. "She is just a _treat_."

"Are you feeling hungry, love?" asked an identical woman, her equally non-existent clothing as pure and white as she herself clearly was not. "I know you had that Yoga instructor for breakfast, but I missed out. So I would not mind a snack at. All."

"Melanie! Miltia!" Ruby squeaked, taking several steps backward. She had seen the girls before, when visiting with Yang against her will, and she had spent a long time hiding from them. The girls were a pair of half-succubi, and the frankly ridiculous levels of natural sex appeal and not-inconsiderable superhuman strength this provided easily made them Junior's best associates, excelling at both, erm, 'pumping' visitors for information, and if they got too pushy, at throwing them out on the street. Through a wall.

Ruby wasn't scared of _that _part of course. Violence was an old friend. But they were _really _gorgeous and wore about enough material to make a single t-shirt between them, and _that _was scary as Hell.

"Okay. Look. Girls, Yang really likes you, so… I would rather not… do anything to upseeeeek!" Ruby squeaked, jumping away as Melanie reached out and idly ran a finger down the side of her neck. Unfortunately, she jumped right into Miltia, who was _awfully _soft and things were _wrong_.

"Finally," Miltia purred. "You know, after that ridiculous mess with the ice girl, I thought we were losing our touch. But _you _like our touch, don't you dear little thing?"

"Erm… well, I mean, not to say you two aren't great, and… and…" Ruby said, her eyes involuntarily arching downward. She apologized to Blake in her mind, but Miltia was like, an _inch _away from her and calling her top a bra would have been giving it too much credit. "I mean to say, that is… you're very pretty! But I kind of _have _someone I'm interested in, she's a real sweetie, her name is… ummmm…"

"Don't worry, dear," Melanie said, pressing up against Ruby from behind and leaving her pinned in what she might have legitimately called her worst nightmare. "After we're done with you, you won't remember your _own _name."

Junior chuckled. "Make sure the coma doesn't last too long, girls. I don't want Beacon after us for a dead agent, I just want them to understand they need to be more polite when they knock on my door asking for a handout."

"Oh, don't worry," Melanie purred, taking a long sniff of Ruby's hair. "I think we want her to be a repeat customer."

"Do… do I get no say in this?" Ruby squeaked.

"Sure. We just already know you're going to say yes," Miltia said with a giggle, tugging Ruby toward the door…

"Hello!" Penny said, once it swung fully open to reveal her. She seemed pretty happy to be noticed. "I'm staying out of the negotiations, as instructed! Ruby needs to focus."

"H…hello?" Melanie asked, displaying a rather shocking lack of poise for her. It wasn't that a surprise visitor could throw her off so easily, it was just that for whatever reason, even though she was both _starving _and (she could admit this) just kind of ridiculously promiscuous to a degree that was a little creepy, for some reason this seemingly adorable little red-haired moppet just… just…

"Mel," Miltia said, her tone one of genuine horror, "this girl is… she… she just _doesn't do it for me." _

"Oh, thank God, I thought it was just me. I have no idea what's going on. She's just not attractive at all!"

"Really?" Ruby asked. "I thought she was kinda cute."

"Hush, dear, the grownups are talking," Melanie said.

"Mel, what do we _do_? I've never seen someone who was pretty and… and _not _pretty, in some indefinable way. It's so… it just doesn't _happen_? What are we supposed to do?" Miltia asked.

Junior, his tone long-suffering, said, "You could try just beating the tar out of her. You know. With your fists."

"Oh, right, violence," Melanie said, clearly relieved by this concept. She cracked her knuckles. "We don't get to do that very often, but it is nice to fall back on it from time to time."

"Ruby, my friend," Penny asked, blinking in confusion. "I thought this was a negotiation. But it appears you are being _menaced _by these people. Are you being _menaced _by these people?"

"… You are too, Penny," Ruby said.

"… … Oooooh," Penny said.

(*)

Outside, the janitor mopped up a sticky spot on the floor next to the bar. It was kind of tough, so he thought he might have to into the storage rooms for some more cleaner.

Melanie, one of the boss's two right-hand women, then came flying out of the back rooms, going right through the solid oak door as if it was plywood and sliding to a halt a few feet away from him, moaning weakly. From the hallway she had flown out of, he heard a few extremely loud impacts that shook the club, as though someone was being slammed into the concrete with considerably more force than anything could possibly have managed. Which, of course, was exactly what someone was having done to them.

After a few minutes of that, Miltia flew out into the club and landed on top of her sister with bone crushing force. Neither of them got up.

"I need a new job," the janitor muttered.

(*)

Back in the offices, Junior looked at what was left of his door (and his bouncers) in abject despair.

"So…" he said softly. "When you say you're from 'Beacon,' you really mean you're with Xiao-long."

"She's my sister?" Ruby said, apparently just as confused as Junior was. It wasn't often that you saw a five-foot-nothing, freckle-faced little sweetheart absolutely manhandle a pair of genuine half-demons like they were particularly naughty puppies.

"Huh. Would have said the redhead has more in common with her than you do, but either way I'm not as surprised as I should be," he said with a sigh. "So. I am gonna assume you want her usual deal?"

"What is her usual deal?"

"Free information or you wreck the club and beat everyone into a coma."

"… … … That will do just fine," Ruby said.


End file.
